Droid Hype

T-Mobile Sensation 4G S-Off and Perma-root

Over the weekend, the T-Mobile HTC Sensation 4G was “cracked” and to everyone’s delight s-off (security off) was achieved. This basically allows for custom kernals and roms to be installed via, you guessed it, a custom recovery.

Here’s how to do it.

1. Power off your phone and then press volume down and the power button. A white screen (bootloader) will appear. Please note down the h-boot version your Sensation is running. Also note that you have s-on listed at the top of this white screen.
2. Reboot and let the OS load completely.
3. Download the Revolutionary application from revolutionary.io. You will be prompted to enter some information including a serial key and the information from your bootloader screen in the earlier step. Keep this page open!
4. Read the short description of what Revolutionary is on their wiki.
5. Download and install the correct HTC drivers from their wiki.
6. Extract and run the Revolutionary.exe file as administrator (assuming you are on Windows 7).
7. Plug your phone into your computer. The Revolutionary application should now detect your phone and will provide you with a unique serial key. Copy this serial key down by right clicking, selecting mark, then right clicking again.
8. Go back to the Revolutionary.io website and enter in your serial key. You will be provided with a unqiue beta key. Copy this beta key and enter/paste it into the Revolutionary application.
9. Your phone will be temp rooted and it will reboot into another white screen, which will be the fastboot screen.
10. Let the application perform some tasks and it will reboot the white screen at least once. On the second load, you should see Revolutionary on the first line and s-off will be shown on the second line.
11. The application will now ask if you wish to flash a custom clockworkmod recovery. By all means select yes. If you do not get this option, do not worry and just follow the steps in the next section.
12. Now if you were prompted for recovery flashing, let it finish and then load the root zip found on the Revolutionary wiki. This will perma-root your device if you are on the stock rom.
13. The last step is to find a rom to try. At the moment, InsertCoin and Virtuous Sensation seem to have the most development. These roms work on T-Mobile US Sensation 4Gs, so wifi calling is included. The kernals have been OC’d as well, nice touch.

Flashing Clockworkmod recovery manually

In case the Revolutionary application did not prompt you for recovery flash, here’s how to do it manually. You must have adb installed and working.

Hold down volume – and power and boot into your bootlooader. Select fastboot and then plug your USB cable in. The screen should say fastboot USB now.

1. Download this CWM 4.0.1.4 recovery image for the Sensation (Pyramid).
2. Open up a command prompt to your tools directory of adb.
3. Issue the command: fastboot flash recovery cwm-4.0.1.4-pyramid-fixed.img
4. It should show two lines saying sending and successfully flashed.
5. Power down and then hold volume – and power. Selection recovery from the menu and you should be greeted with a blue CWM menu.

*Update* – Clockworkmod recovery 4.0.1.5 is now available via Rom Manager. Download the app from the market and hit the recovery flash option and you are good to go!